Perhaps this has been beat to death on other forums, but I had occasion to consider it anyway. What is the prevailing opinion of this crowd on WG7? Was it a swipe at Gary as he was leaving TSR? Or was it simply a quirky take on that most infamous of Castle/Mega Dungeons? From the bit I have read, it was written by many noob writers, with the notable exceptions of sections by Steve Perrin and Paul Jacques, Steve being the really standout name.
Would actually be an interesting question to pose to either Steve Perrin or Paul Jaquays if any of the old timers here have their contact info. Hard to say if it was a swipe or not. Its so over the top dumb that you have to wonder if it was one of those in jokes in the office that sounded really funny in theory but was just stupid as a published project. Given post-Gygax TSR's record of poorly thought out publishing decisions it would not surprise me if it was just sheer dumbness (possibly combined with a snarky curiosity on the part of the suits that the Blumes and Lorraine installed at TSR to see if the gamer rubes would buy it). On the plus side, this time of year copies of WG7 can at least redeem themselves by providing kindling.. Andy
It seems that the grogs over on Dragonsfoot think it is a nasty swipe at Gary but I'm not so sure. I cannot believe for one instant that Perrin would participate in something like that. But then again, he doesn't participate with the other grogs over at DF so who knows. I was going through it the other day on the can ( :mrgreen: ) and it seemed like it was kind of an homage to the whimsical nature of the published Castle stuff (EX1 & 2).
I don't think either Perrin or Jaquays would have participated in that case - but on the flip side, they only wrote one section each and it may have been pitched to them differently. So the reality may lie somewhere in between. Could be that someone lightheartedly decided to do a sendup of Castle Greyhawk a la EX1-2, the suits approved the idea because they wanted to skewer Gary's creation out of spite, and it was then pitched from the original idea's POV. Considering that Perrin and Jaquays are the only known writer in the bunch and the rest a bunch of faceless hacks, maybe P & J were contracted to lend the project an aura of respectability but the suits then made sure a bunch of hacks were assigned the bulk of the work to ensure it was low quality. We'll never know for sure unless a fly on the wall from those days surfaces with some sort of factual information. In any case, regardless of the intent the abysmal quality of the module certainly had the effect of turning Castle Greyhawk into a joke. And that I can neither condone or forgive..
